I’m not surprised that King County Metro’s Proposition 1 failed at the polls during a special election, but like most other observers I am surprised that it failed by such a wide margin. Late ballots have softened the blow somewhat, but there aren’t many late ballots remaining. When the final vote is tallied, Prop 1 will have failed by about eight points.
By modern American standards, eight points is almost a landslide.
So the question remains: had the county gone to the ballot with the more progressive Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) we requested from the legislature (a 1.5 percent tax on the value of your car), would voters have approved that at Tuesday’s election? And I think the answer would likely have been a resounding “No.”
Editorial board opponents had touted the regressive nature of Prop 1’s car tab/sales tax combo, but of course that was disingenuous. All our taxes are regressive, and there’s no support from the Blethenites to fix that. The truth is, any Metro funding solution that didn’t involve busting the bus drivers union would have earned a “no” endorsement from the Seattle Times.
Not that there wasn’t a sizable contingent of “no” voters on the left who failed to weigh the regressive nature of bus cuts versus the shitty reality of the tax authority we have. But I just don’t believe that’s a large enough swing vote to overcome an eight point margin. The fact is, most voters just aren’t going to distinguish between an MVET and a VLF (Vehicle License Fee)—they are both taxes that you pay when you renew your car tabs.
King County voters voted against raising taxes on their cars. Period. By eight fucking points. So it would be a mistake to read too much nuance into Tuesday’s results in order to presume that an MVET would have fared much better.
That’s why, unless the legislature is prepared to give King County councilmanic authority to levy an MVET without the approval voters—and the legislature most certainly is not—I believe Olympia’s failure to act is probably now moot. We can’t pass an MVET in a special election, and maybe not in an off-year general election either. Perhaps in 2016, during a high-turnout presidential election, but even that wouldn’t be a sure thing. In the meanwhile, systemwide Metro cuts are now unavoidable.
Politically, that means two things. First, Seattle must act on its own to save our in-city bus service from the cutting room floor. We can do that. Prop 1 passed handedly in Seattle precincts. And we have plenty of funding options.
Second, our county’s legislative delegation must wrap its collective mind around the fact that an otherwise crappy state transportation funding package is no longer a price worth paying in return for Metro MVET authority. The hostage has died. So don’t make major concessions elsewhere in return for a non-councilmanic MVET authority we likely can’t use.
Elections have consequences, and most of Tuesday’s consequences are bad. But let’s not compound them by pretending they didn’t happen.
damn well said! Sir. remind us again why aren’t you actually really truly running for some political position? (“money grubbing” for nasty campaign costs ain’t sufficient excuse (as one easily makes up for it later via “life-long connections to the world of organized crime”))
I’ll be interested in the final breakouts. The almost unfunded No campaign totally overwhelmed the effort in the suburbs. The same day as ballots arrived in the mail there were, and I’m not exaggerating 50 “Say no to $60 car tabs” signs in the general vicinity of my home. By election day, I could find four “Save our Buses, Fix our Roads” signs.So for the largely car driving low information voter the message was Prop. 1 will cost you $60 per year and the only thing it pays for is buses which you don’t use.
The underfunded No campaign had their act together and made sure their message was delivered on or about the day you found your single measure ballot in the mail.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the further Eastern King County suburbs went 15-18 points against and swamped the Seattle vote that narrowly approved it.
The Yes campaign was totally inept and I would include the media cheerleaders at The Stranger in that. “If we hide the fact that there’s a roads package included and focus on buses we can get the whole $15now crowd to approve this and not have to worry about middle-class car driving moms.”
Lost in all the talk about busses are the cuts to King County’s Roads department. The roads package wasn’t hidden, the county is suffering loss of funds for maintenance. A few years ago, they had 600 people in that department. They’re down to 380, with another 80 to be laid off. King County will be closing some bridges and roads, deferring maintenance on others, mostly in the rural parts of the county, so those people will be getting the government they voted for.
It’s probably not an accident that we’re locked into a system of regressive taxes to pay for public services, anymore than it’s an accident that a public who wants a $2.2 billion viaduct gets a $4 billion tunnel whose only function is to make downtown property owners richer. Anytime you have an election in which 250,000 people vote “yes” and 3 billionaires vote “no,” the “no” votes win. Of course it’s not that overt, there’s subtle manipulation going on, which in our state takes the form of a legislative and legal framework that puts all taxes except “soak the poor” taxes off limits. The net result is that the oligarchs who own everything also run everything, and the rest of us don’t count for squat.
The $125 million it’s going to cost to fix the broken tunnel boring machine would pay for a lot of bus service, with money left over to fix some potholes.
Well here’s what I think the county should do. As Prop. 1 also included street repair money that isn’t going to materialize, the county should do a triage on streets needing repair, and allocate enough money to the highest priority streets to do a proper job of repairing them, and give no money to the rest, just let ’em go back to gravel. How to triage? Simple. The precincts that voted “yes” should get the street repair money (what there is), and the precincts that voted “no” should get the gravel.
I would have distinguished between a MVET and a set fee on the vehicle license. Not that I agreed with the way they calculated depreciation on my car for the monorail but I would have changed my vote to a yes.
If it had just been a road maintenance package, I would have voted yes…but I don’t give a fuck about transit.
How soon before we have tolls, use taxes, on every major road in the puget sound?
I agree that Seattle must act, but I have to point out what actually killed it: The road maintenance part.
Nobody votes for road maintenance and it added 40% to the cost of the measure. Roughly that makes it the difference between a $20 tab (keep your tabs where they are!) and .1 sales tax and a $60 tab (the only message on the no campaign’s signs) and a .1 sales tax.
Also note: No one really cares about the .1 sales tax in a way that impacts voting.
So… I have two questions:
1. Why did the King County Leg add the road maintenance bit?
2. Why didnt their highly paid political analysts tell them not to? It was a comment I made two minutes after reading what prop 1 was.